Community colleges
banding together to be heard in Austin
Longview News
Journal
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Inadequate state funding and growing enrollment rates have forced state-supported community colleges to join together in an effort to bring attention to their concerns.
Members of the Texas Association of Community Colleges launched its Solutions for Texas campaign this week to highlight the benefits, and growing challenges, community colleges are facing.
The Texas Association of Community Colleges is a nonprofit association that represents 50 public community college districts, including Panola, Northeast Texas Community and Kilgore colleges.
Association members Bill Holda, president of Kilgore College, Gregory Powell, president of Panola College, and Bradley Johnson, president of Northeast Texas Community College, will head to Austin on Oct. 2-3 with other community college presidents to meet with legislators.
"It's a much more unified approach than what we've seen in the past," said Texas Association of Community Colleges spokesman Steve Johnson. "We're trying to tell one story about our strengths, rather than have each college tell their own story."
State Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, is on the Senate Finance Committee. He said it's too early to tell whether state community colleges will see an increase in funding.
"We're starting to work on the budget," Eltife said. "We haven't gotten all the numbers yet to see if we're going to increase funding for community colleges."
Eltife added that he supports community colleges and would push for more funding during the budget planning process.
According to the association, state funds for community colleges has dropped dramatically over the last 20 years.
In 1986, 60 percent of community college revenues came from the state; that dropped to 29 percent in 2007.
Johnson said many community colleges are depending on state and federal grants, corporate partnerships, taxes from taxpayers in their districts, tuition and fee increases and donations for funding.
"Many community colleges in Texas are sinking financially and need more state support," Johnson said. "Community colleges educate everybody, we turn nobody down. They play a very important role in the areas they serve and for our state's economy."
Powell said he supports the unified push for more funding.
"I hope we can do a good job at convincing the legislature in the value of community colleges," Powell said. "We must persuade elected officials that this is an investment for the state."
Powell said Panola College has had to use tax monies for employee and administrative salaries and benefits, making it difficult to maintain the campuses infrastructure as it grows.
"It's extremely critical that we see more support from the state," Powell said. "Community colleges have done as much as they can by raising taxes and tuition."
For Johnson, the funding crunch has caused him and the college's board of trustees to make tough decisions about what programs to expand and open, including its nursing program that is at capacity.
"Students are coming to us at record numbers to prepare them for the labor force, just as the state is backing off on they way they fund us," Johnson said.
Holda said much of the problem with community college funding is a result of the state's taxing structure.
"Texas has a dysfunctional tax structure that makes it hard to fund community colleges," Holda said. "Don't get me wrong: I love Texas — but the simple fact is we're cheap."
Holda said community colleges educate 75 percent of the freshmen and sophomores in higher education and need more funds to keep education affordable and off the burden of students and taxpayers.
"We're our worse enemy because we are doing more with less, and the Legislature thinks we're doing fine at a time when need more financial support is needed," Holda said. "The local community is doing its part, the business community is doing its part; it's time for the Legislature to act."
State universities receive most of their funding from the state and federal and state grants for research. In addition, community colleges collect funding from taxing districts. For instance, Kilgore College taxing district consists of Gladewater, Kilgore, Leverett's Chapel, Overton, Sabine, West Rusk and White Oak independent school districts. Students from those districts pay a lower tuition because their areas are taxed to fund the college.
In September 2003, after the Legislature approved deregulating tuition — where there is no upper limit on the amount of designated tuition a university can charge — state funding began decreasing at many universities, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
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